Atmospheric Escape - Significance of Solar Winds

Significance of Solar Winds

The relative importance of each loss process is a function of planet mass, its atmosphere composition, and its distance from its sun. A common erroneous belief is that the primary non-thermal escape mechanism is atmospheric stripping by a solar wind in the absence of a magnetosphere. Excess kinetic energy from solar winds can impart sufficient energy to the atmospheric particles to allow them to reach escape velocity, causing atmospheric escape. The solar wind, composed of ions, is deflected by magnetic fields because the charged particles within the wind flow along magnetic field lines. The presence of a magnetic field thus deflects solar winds, preventing the loss of atmosphere. On Earth, for instance, the interaction between the solar wind and earth's magnetic field deflects the solar wind about the planet, with near total deflection at a distance of 10 Earth. This region of deflection is called a bow shock.

Depending on planet size and atmospheric composition, however, a lack of magnetic field does not determine the fate of a planet's atmosphere. Venus, for instance, has no powerful magnetic field. Its close proximity to the Sun also increases the speed and number of particles, and would presumably cause the atmosphere to be stripped almost entirely, much like that of Mars. Despite this, the atmosphere of Venus is two orders of magnitudes denser than Earth's. Recent models indicate that stripping by solar wind accounts for less than 1/3 of total non-thermal loss processes.

While Venus and Mars have no magnetosphere to protect the atmosphere from solar winds, photoionizing radiation (sunlight) and the interaction of the solar wind with the atmosphere of the planets causes ionization of the uppermost part of the atmosphere. This ionized region, in turn induces magnetic moments that deflect solar winds much like a magnetic field. This limits solar-wind effects to the uppermost altitudes of atmosphere, roughly 1.2–1.5 planetary radii away from the planet, or an order of magnitude closer to the surface than Earth's magnetic field creates. Beyond this region, called a bow shock, the solar wind is slowed to subsonic velocities. Nearer to the surface, solar-wind dynamic pressure achieves a balance with the pressure from the ionosphere, in a region called the ionopause. This interaction typically prevents solar wind stripping from being the dominant loss process of the atmosphere.